It's almost reverse logic. The EU says they are protecting the consumer from higher prices that might occur if Intel's supposed illegal behavior had succeeded in driving out competition. The ironic part is, like you mention, the charges occurred in the past, so they were unsuccessful in driving AMD out of business. And even more ironic, regardless of the truth of the allegations, AMD is driving themselves out of business with their broken business strategy and foolhardy ATI purchase. Which means that Intel's actions did not harm the consumer, but the EU still wants to punish them anyway. Even though the consumer has benefitted from the lower prices.
I feel that a conviction for anticompetitive behavior should not be dependent on the level of success, the inherent weakness of the competition, or whether or not the activities have stopped now. Breaking the rules is breaking the rules, and excuses like "we won't do it again", "it didn't work" or "they're losing anyway" shouldn't buy anyone a free pass. That said, I do think the punishment should take those factors into account, if Intel is determined to be guilty.
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